


Silent Whistle

by SleepingReader



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Rescue, Violence, but its against viren so its okay, can be read as gren/amaya, damsel in distress role reversal, new name, teen for swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 23:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingReader/pseuds/SleepingReader
Summary: Locked inside Viren’s dungeon, Commander Gren has started whistling.Outside of Viren’s dungeon, General Amaya is on her way.Get rekt, Viren.





	Silent Whistle

There was whistling from the dungeon. It was soft at first, but grew in strength as the whistler found his voice again.  
‘A little songbird,’ Lord Viren sing-songed softly to himself, roaming the corridors, staff in hand. _He should have been called Commander Wren_. He thought, a faint smile upon his features. He wanted to tell this to Claudia, but she was still away. It didn’t matter anyway. Gren had no food, no drink save from the rainwater dripping from the walls.  
And yet he whistled as if it was nothing. Mocking Viren. Challenging him.  
Viren quickly dismissed the thought, and rubbed the head of his staff to comfort himself. Gren was an optimistic fool. He didn’t matter.  
The whistling continued. It was a bar of _Love Amongst Dragons_. 

Like so many times, Viren was wrong. Gren mattered more than even Gren knew. When the fact that Gren had never appeared on the battlefields reached General Amaya’s eyes, there was only one person she knew would be so disgusting as to lock up someone like Gren. Her horse was saddled immediately, and she left her Lieutenant Naiga in her place. Then she rode at breakneck speed to the capital of the kingdom. She didn’t need to sign it, the message was clear in her eyes. 

_I’m coming for you, Gren_.

 

... 

After two days after the whistling started, King Harrow’s pet bird had started singing back. A new light lit up in Gren’s face, and he whistled back and forth to it, the two teaching each other new songs every day. Making up new songs together. Even in the cold, dark, cellar, Gren’s smile lit up the room. The guards above sometimes cursed him. Others merely felt sad for the hopeful man underneath them.  
Gren’s song reached the other birds near the castle and was spread amongst them. If Amaya could have heard them, she might have driven her horse even faster. 

Lord Viren, no, King Viren, soon at least, was walking down a hallway a few days later, having blocked his ears with cotton to drown out the songs of the birds outside, and of Gren’s song that had seemed to seep into the very bricks of the castle. It haunted him in his nights and in his waking days. Nothing helped. The leak in the cellar kept dripping water, no matter which spell he set on it. Harrow’s bird kept singing, and Gren kept whistling.  
Maybe if he hadn’t blocked his ears, he could have heard her coming. It wasn’t as if she was particularly stealthy.  
Her Guardsman’s shield pinned him to the wall by his throat before he could even form the first shape of the spell. 

‘ _I would almost think you were the deaf one, V-I-R-E-N,_ ,’ Amaya signed, cold fury in her eyes, nodding to the cotton in his ears.  
Viren croaked something, but she hit him in the nose.  
‘ _Don’t talk to me about whistles. I know you can understand me, rat-bastard. You tell me where Gren is, and maybe you’ll live with one part of your face intact._ ’ she signed.  
He noticed that her sign for Gren was the sign for ‘friend’ mixed with the sign for ‘sunrise’. 

Viren could only move his mouth, but it was enough for Amaya. She pounded her fist once against the shield in the wall, driving it deeper into his neck. Then she took up his staff and broke it over her knee. 

‘ _Use one if you need it, plague-ridden-bastard-son-of-a-two-faced-jackal_ ’ she signed over her shoulder as she began running towards the cellar.  
Unknown to Amaya, the whistling intensified as she came down the stairs. As if the birds themselves were trying to let Gren know. Two guards standing over the dungeon looked up in surprise at the louder birdsong, and then were promptly thrown on the floor by Amaya. One tried to scramble up, but she raised one eyebrow at him and he thought better of it.

 _rock, stone, stone, rock..._ Amaya thought to herself as she pounded upon the rocks and stones. Finally, the stairway slid open and the whistling stopped. 

Amaya crept into the torchlit cellar. Gren heard her coming. ‘Amaya!’ He said, in a relieved sob, always knowing she couldn’t hear him but relieved nonetheless. He kicked a plate across the floor upon which had sat fruit that he couldn’t reach. Amaya saw it sliding and ran toward her friend.

Tears started streaming down Gren’s face as he saw his General’s. She was with him in an instant, filling a cup with water and holding it to his lips. Rummaging in her pockets until she found a piece of dried fruit. Signing frantic apologies as she broke apart his chafing shackles with her bare hands. Then she lifted him bodily from the wall and hugged him. 

‘Can you stand?’ He translated automatically, instinctively, after she had set him unsteadily on his feet. He was so used to translating for her that her worry reflected in his own voice. He faintly recognised that he didn’t need to speak for her, since it was only them in the dungeon, but talking for her came as easy as breathing.   
He tried to speak with his hands instead, but they were cold and bloodless. Amaya put her own on his, silencing him. She pointed to his lips.  
‘I can try’ he said, smiling weakly. He tried a wobbly step and immediately fell into his General’s arms again.  
‘I will carr-‘ he began translating for her again, before being swept up into her arms.  
_Too godsdamn light_ Amaya thought. 

She started walking, but a cheep came from a nearby cage, and Gren tapped her shoulder to get her attention. He pointed to Pip and she immediately understood, allowing him to reach out and shakily open the cage. Pip flew out, and landed on Gren’s knee. Amaya briefly held her forehead against Gren’s, eyes closed, and began the long walk up the stairs, carrying him the way a man would carry his bride. For the first time in seemingly endless days, Gren felt himself relax. 

As they approached the spot where Viren was still shackled against the wall, Amaya set her trusted commander gently down on a nearby chair, near the fire. Pip chose to sit on his shoulder and whistled their song in his ear. 

Amaya strode away purposefully.  
A crunch. Then a scream.  
Another crunch. Scream.  
A clatter of a wooden stick.  
Commander Gren didn’t need to see her hands to know what she was saying.  
‘There. _Now_ you need a stick’ he translated from his little corner, just as Amaya came around the bend.  
She laughed, reading his lips. The sound echoed through the corridor. Gren laughed with her, and just like that, the birds began singing again. Pip nuzzled Gren.  
With an odd look in her eyes, Amaya came towards Gren. She held his head in both hands and kissed his forehead. He smiled up at her. He knew this look. He had seen it on his own face every time he looked in his reflection on her armour. Endless loyalty. They hadn’t changed. And they wouldn’t be apart again. 

Flexing his warming fingers, he finally signed at her.  
‘ _Breakfast?_ ’  
‘ _YES_ ’ she replied, and helped him steadily to his feet.


End file.
